Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Thank you to all of the dedicated educators who made this discussion such a success. Hopefully you have already used some things you learned from the book in your classroom or have shared this book or some lessons learned with your fellow teachers. For this final week, please feel free to share some of your take-always or changes you have already made in your classroom. Watch this blog, social media, and our website for details about our next book club. If you are interested in continuing to work with other teachers who are teaching like PIRATES, follow the #tlap hashtag on Twitter and participate in the #tlap Twitter chats on Monday nights.

Monday, October 28, 2013

This week's reading assignment is the last section of the book, Building a Better PIRATE. Dave starts this section by asking the tough question, "Do you want to be great?" How would you answer this question? How do you strive for greatness and stay positive? Visit the blog next week to share some final thoughts about the book.

Hopefully you were able to join us for our webinar with Dave Burgess last week. If you missed it or if you would like to view it again, you can view the webinar here.

Monday, October 21, 2013

This week we're learning about hooks from the sections "All the World is a Stage," "Stand and Deliver," "Advanced Tactics," and "Around the Edges." This week share how you make changes to the physical space your classroom, move around in your classroom to involve your students, use contests or missions to encourage learning, or use any of the other hooks in this section.

Don't forget about the webinar with Dave Burgess tomorrow. Click here to register for the webinar. There will be opportunity to ask questions throughout the webinar, but if you would like to send questions ahead of time, feel free to email them to carnahan@doe.in.gov.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

I am excited to announce our upcoming webinar with Teach Like a PIRATE author, Dave Burgess. Next Tuesday, October 22nd, from 4-5pm Eastern, you will have the opportunity to hear about the PIRATE system from Dave and how he has transformed his classroom. Dave will spend a majority of this hour answering your questions. If you would like to submit a question, please share it as a comment to this post. Please submit your questions by the end of the day Friday. Click here to register for Tuesday's webinar.

Have you had the opportunity to interact with other PIRATES? Be sure to check out the Teach Like a PIRATE hashtag, #tlap, on Twitter.

Monday, October 14, 2013

This week we're learning about hooks and reading the sections "I Like to Move It, Move It," "Long Live the Arts," and "What's in it For Me?" There are so many hooks discussed and Dave shared so many great questions, I am not going to list them all here. What I'd like you to do this week is tell us about how you are going to incorporate movement, art, and/or connections to students' own lives in your lessons. If you have multiple ideas please share them. Also, if you're struggling to come up with ideas, ask your network here in the blog.

Next week we will discuss the second half of Part 2, the remainder of the hooks.

Monday, October 7, 2013

This week we read the chapters "Transformation" and "Enthusiasm." Dave asks a couple of tough questions in this chapter: "If your students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching in an empty room?" and "Do you have any lessons that you could sell tickets to?" So I'll ask you to share the answer to one of these -- do you have any lessons for which you could sell tickets? Have you thought about how you could transform your classroom so you can answer yes to one (or maybe both) of those questions. How do you show and spread enthusiasm in your classroom? How do you fight the tendency to dwell on the negative or to be too tough on yourself?

Next week we will jump into part 2 of the book, "Crafting Engaging Lessons." We will discuss the sections "The Third Circle," "A Crash Course in Presentational Hooks," "'I Like to Move It, Move It,'" "Long Live the Arts," and "What's in it For Me?"

Monday, September 30, 2013

Welcome to week 3. I hope you are enjoying the book as much as I am. This week we read the chapters "Rapport" and "Ask and Analyze." Did anyone else laugh out loud while reading about Dave's first days of school? I would love to be a fly on the wall in his classroom! Do you have any first day(s) of school practices that you use to connect with your students? Have you found it makes a difference later in the school year when you make an effort to connect with your students early in the school year? And what kinds of opportunities do you give your students to ask questions?

Next week we will read and discuss the chapters "Transformation" and "Enthusiasm."

Monday, September 23, 2013

It's great to see so many familiar names in the blog comments from last week. A special welcome to all the new book club participants. I am so excited about this book and the conversations to come. Please let your colleagues know that it's not too late to participate. Just have them introduce themselves and then jump into the conversation.

This week we're discussing the chapters "Passion" and "Immersion." Thanks to Susie Highley for sharing a couple of questions about passion:

- What parts of the curriculum do you "dread" teaching (like Burgess is not enthused about the railroads or Industrial Revolution)? Have you been able to get past that dread and and focus on your professional or personal passions?

- What are your hobbies or personal passions? Have you found a way to incorporate your personal passion into your classroom?

And what does total immersion in your class look like? Or what do you hope it will look like?

Next week we will read and discuss the chapters "Rapport" and "Ask and Analyze."

Monday, September 16, 2013

Welcome to the Fall 2013 eLearning book group. This week we want to give you a chance to meet each other. As a comment to this post, please share your name, your school and district, and your role there. Also, share what you know about this book or teaching like a "PIRATE." Be ready next Monday to discuss the first two sections of the book, "Passion" and "Immersion." Aside from this book group, if you are interested in connecting with others who are reading and who have read the book, visit Twitter and utilize the Teach Like a PIRATE hashtag, #tlap. Be sure to include our hashtag, #INeLearn, so other Indiana teachers can connect with you.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Congratulations to our the two winners of a trip to the ICE Conference, Brant Moore from Angola Middle School and Ted Beachtold from Eastern Green School Corp. These two gentlemen were randomly chosen from participants of the summer book group. They will be attending the ICE Conference in October and may even get to meet Angela Maiers, the author of Classroom Habitudes. It's not too late to register for the ICE Conference. We hope to see you at the conference and in the next book club beginning Monday, September 16th.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Ahoy Matey! Put on your eye patch and set course with the Office of eLearning as we navigate the high seas of instruction for this fall’s online book group! Our book choice, Teach Like A PIRATE (Amazon and Barnes and Noble) by Dave Burgess, focuses on increasing student engagement while transforming your life as an educator! We will begin this learning adventure on September 16th so be sure you have a copy of the book and visit our eLearning Book club blog. We will post a discussion question or thought each week to spark the online conversation among participants. This is a great way to learn together and meet fellow educators. Don’t miss the boat on this great opportunity. Click on Join this site now to get connected.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

After reading this book, did you start this school year any differently? In closing, feel free to share any final thoughts on the book or your plans to implement the habitudes into your classroom.

This is the end of another wonderful book club. Thank you all so much for participating. Please be sure to submit all of our blog post comments by the end of the day Friday, August 23rd. Early next week we will select and notify winners of a trip to the ICE conference from those who participated in every week (posts for chapters 1-8) of the discussion.

In the next few days we will be sharing information about our fall book group here, on our website, and through social media. Hope to see you all back here in a few weeks!

Monday, August 12, 2013

This chapter ended with a quote that I have heard a lot from keynote speakers at a variety of conferences over the last year: "The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler After reading this chapter and thinking about adaptability, what do you think of this quote? Do you plan to use any of the lessons suggested in this chapter or do you have specific ways that you teach or model adaptability in your classroom?

Congratulations! You have made it to the 7th and final habitude. If you would like to be eligible to win a trip to the ICE Conference you will need to have commented on each of the habitude chapter posts by 4pm Eastern next Friday, August 23rd. There will be an opportunity to share some concluding thoughts next week when I share a post next Monday on the last chapter.

Monday, August 5, 2013

This week's habitude is passion. Have you found a way in your busy schedule to give kids time to work on things they're passionate about? Are you getting to teach anything that you're passionate about?

Monday, July 29, 2013

Courage seems to be a great habitude to follow up perseverance. They really seem to go hand-in-hand, especially when Angela mentions the words fear, failure, and discomfort. What is something courageous you are planning to do in your classroom this year? How do you plan to teach and/or model courage?

Monday, July 22, 2013

Perseverance. It's hard to continue working on something or toward a goal if you are not succeeding. I like Angela's quote in the Chapter Takeaway: "I want students walking away with one big idea: they are stronger than they think they are." How do you teach perseverance in your classroom? Do you intentionally model perseverance to your students? What are some goals that you have in teaching or modeling perseverance this year?

Monday, July 15, 2013

This week's question comes from my husband who is a high school social studies teacher. How can self-awareness be taught in a core content area classroom while still teaching all of the content? Do you have any ideas of how to fit some self-awareness lessons into your busy schedule?

Monday, July 8, 2013

How do you tell the difference between a student who is genuinely curious about a topic and asking genuine questions and a student who just asks questions to fulfill an assignment? Does it matter what types of questions they are asking? Will they get the content whether they are faking it or not? How do you teach or model curiosity in your classroom?

Monday, June 24, 2013

As I read this chapter and thought about this quote, I kept coming back to this question: is imagination possible without knowledge? Share your thoughts on this question and the chapter.

Last week was an amazing start to the summer book club. You guys have been having a great conversation. Please feel free to continue commenting to old posts while moving on to the new week's discussion. Please note that we will take next week off and continue the conversation the week of July 8th. If you know someone who is interested in joining the book club, let them know that now is a great time to catch up with the group. Have a great week!

Monday, June 17, 2013

It seems that in order to have a conversation about teaching our students about habitudes, we first need to understand them. Review the questions at the end of the chapter and share how the habitudes fit into your life and classroom. How do you see the habitudes helping your students become 21st century learners? If you are unsure, share that and get some ideas from the other participants. (By the way, how many of you raised your mental hand when she asked if you were a genius? I admit, I did not! But I love the idea that we are all geniuses sometimes.)

Monday, June 10, 2013

Today begins the Summer eLearning Book Group. If you have not purchased or started reading the book yet, don't worry. This week we will start with introductions. Please take a moment to share your name, the school/corporation/organization your work for, and your role there. To do this, click on this post title or the number of comments below this post then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you will see the "Enter your comment" box. You can also reply back to anyone's comment by clicking on "Reply" below any comment. Next week we will discuss chapter 1 and continue working through a chapter each week, so your homework this week is to read chapter 1. Keep in mind that any Indiana educator who participates in all 10 of the weekly conversations will be eligible to win a trip to the ICE conference where Angela Maiers will be the keynote speaker. If you get behind in your reading throughout the summer, you will have opportunities to catch up with the group. Also, you will receive PGPs by participating in at least 8 of the 10 weeks of the book group.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Thanks again to all the participants in this Spring's book group. We are excited to announce that four participants of the book group participated in and supported discussions every week of the book group and will be awarded a trip to the Summer of eLearning Conference of their choice. The winners are Cindy Armbruster, Kari Catanzaro, Therese Dristas, and Catherine Trinkle.

In just a few weeks we will begin our summer book group, where we will be reading Angela Maiers' Classroom Habitudes: Teaching Habits and Attitudes for 21st Century Learning. We will begin discussions the week of Monday, June 10th. All educators in the state of Indiana are invited to join the conversation. Participants will have the opportunity to win a trip to the ICE (Indiana computer Educators) Conference in October and receive up to 15 PGPs. Watch for more details on the summer book on the the eLearning website, in the Ed Tech Connect community in the Learning Connection, and here in the blog.

Monday, May 13, 2013

You have a little less than 2 hours to get your comments made in the book group. If you would like to be eligible to win a trip to the Summer of eLearning Regional Conference of your choice, be sure you have posted a comment to each of the blog posts in the book group blog. Winners will be notified later this morning.

Monday, May 6, 2013

I need to start this post with a correction. Last week I posted that there were 2 weeks left and 2 chapters left in the book. I'm not sure where my brain had gone because this is the last week of the book group and chapter in the book. Apparently I just wasn't ready for the book to end. I think it's more likely that I couldn't believe it was already May!! So this is the last week of the book group. Please have all of your comments online by Monday, May 13th at 10am Eastern. I will e-mail the winners Monday afternoon. I apologize for the confusion.

So this is the last week and Sheryl and Lani leave us to think about how we are going to change. How are you going to change your teaching and/or your classroom because of what you read in this book and the connections you made? Are you planning on spending some time this summer building your connected learning community?

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

It's hard to believe that we only have 2 weeks/chapters left in our
spring book group! If you have fallen behind in your posts, please work
to catch up on the reading and collaborating with this wonderful group
of educators. If you are interested in being eligible for a trip to a
summer eLearning conference, you must have made a meaningful
contribution to each week's blog post. Those entries must be made on or
before Friday, May 17th. Winners will be notified on Monday, May 20th.

Monday, April 29, 2013

In your school, have you been invited to take a leadership role or have you put yourself in a leadership role? If you are a school leader, have you encouraged "distributed leadership" in your school? It would also be interesting to hear if any of your schools have empowered students to become leaders.

Monday, April 22, 2013

So you've determined that you are a connected educator or you are working your way toward that goal. What strategies are you using to keep the momentum going in your learning community/ies? Or maybe you just want to consider the momentum in staying connected to your communities rather than the momentum of the community as a whole, especially if you are a newbie.

Do you have a blog? If not, work through the challenge presented at the end of the chapter and create your own blog in Edublog. If you are not sure how to begin, whether the actual act of creating the blog is a roadblock or the you're stuck on a topic, utilize this network of learners/educators. You might also want to check out the "Publishing a new post" blog post.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Hopefully by now you all have created a Twitter account and you've spent some time thinking about the struggles and challenges of building your learning community. Share the biggest challenge you've faced or are facing in building your community and how you've worked or are working through it. Read other posts and see if you can help each other with your challenges. If you have not created a Twitter account take this opportunity to create one, be sure you're following INeLearn and the authors, lanihall and snbeach, and be sure to check out the hashtag for the book, #connectedlearner. Also tell us if you've chosen to use a Web 2.0 tool other than Twitter to build your learning community and why you chose that tool.

Monday, April 8, 2013

We are so lucky to have a variety of ways to connect online and that's what this chapter is all about. Have you had a chance to try any (or maybe even all) of the tools mentioned in this chapter? What are some of your favorites? Were there any new ones that you tried that you are going to start using? Are there tools that you are using to connect online that were not mentioned in this chapter? Some of the ways our office stays connected are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs (this blog and Web 2.0 Challenge), and 21st Century Learning Lab podcasts.

Monday, April 1, 2013

There is so much to think about in this chapter, but let's talk about collegiality. Think about your learning communities, both online and local. How was collegiality built? If your communities are not collegial, how can you work to build a culture where it is safe to share ideas and challenge each others' thinking? Be sure to also participate in the authors' collaborative Google Presentation to share your thoughts and ideas with the larger community and to learn from them. If you have not done so already, please share how others in the group can connect with you through social media.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Let me start this post by saying how excited I am about the diverse group of educators participating in this book group and how impressed I am each week by your thoughtful and enlightening contributions. I hope you are getting as much out of this conversation as I am! You are building quite the PLN right here. If you would like to connect outside of this blog, please feel free to share your Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or other social media handle in your comment to this week's blog post.

So, on to this week's topic. I don't know about you, but I typically think of unlearning in terms of bad habits or unhealthy coping mechanisms. Have you thought much about this idea of unlearning in terms of your teaching? As an educator, what do you need to unlearn and relearn? What is your strategy in doing this, if you have one? Share your thoughts on unlearning here. Also, feel free to participate in the Padlet (previously Wallwisher) from the Get Connected section at the end of the chapter. And while you're in Padlet, why not create a Padlet activity for your students? (To learn more about Padlet, check out this Wallwisher blog post that DeLyn Beard wrote as part of our Digital Learning Month Web 2.0 Challenge Blog.)

Monday, March 18, 2013

In chapter 2 the authors define and discuss the three prongs of connected learning communities: professional learning communities, personal learning networks, and communities of practice. They also talked about how important it is to have a diverse network. Do you have diversity in your network? How important do you think it is to have a diverse network? Share your thoughts and suggestions on how to build a diverse network. Be sure to listen to, and maybe even comment to, the VoiceThread that is introduced at the end of the chapter. There is a great conversation going on there about how we can be effective teachers of today's learners.

Monday, March 11, 2013

The first chapter defines the "connected educator." After reading this chapter, do you consider yourself a connected educator? If so, how are you connecting with your network? What tools are you using? If you do not consider yourself a connected educator, what did you think of this chapter? What do you think of the idea of becoming a connected educator? At the end of the chapter, Sheryl and Lani shared a couple of ways to get connected with other readers of the book. Feel free to add yourself to the Google Map and view and share resources through Diigo.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Today is the kickoff of our spring eLearning Book Group. Please start by posting a brief introduction. Respond to this post (by clicking on the Comments link below this post) with your name, school/school district, and your role at your school/district. It will be great for participants to have an idea of who they are collaborating with in the book group. We will continue next week with a discussion of chapter 1. Don’t forget – each Indiana educator that makes a meaningful contribution to all of the weekly blog posts will be registered to win a trip to the summer eLearning conference of his/her choice.

Discussions will officially begin on Monday, March 4th and will run for ten weeks, through May 10th. Each Monday we will post a question or idea to spark discussions. To be notified when new posts are available, click on "Join the Site" on the right toolbar or subscribe to the blog.

Participants will have the chance to win an opportunity to attend the summer eLearning conference of their choice. To qualify to win one of the eLearning conference trips, you must be an Indiana educator and make a meaningful contribution to each of the ten weekly blog entries. We will select and notify the winners on Monday, May 13th. (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach will be the keynote speaker at the Zionsville/CIESC eLearning conference on July 31st.) You can either participate on your own or organize a book group at your school. Please let us know if you form a local group.

We know this will be an enjoyable learning experience for all of us and we look forward to meeting you online! If you have any questions, please contact Meri Carnahan.